Anise

Anise appears in Scripture only in Matthew 23:23, where Jesus rebukes the scribes and Pharisees for tithing mint, anise, and cummin while neglecting the weightier matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness. The Greek word anethon translated “anise” in the King James Version is more precisely identified as dill (Anethum graveolens), an aromatic annual herb cultivated across the ancient Near East for its seeds and leaves. True anise (Pimpinella anisum) was known in the ancient world but the Greek term points to dill.

The Pharisaic practice of tithing garden herbs, extending the tithe requirement even to small domestic plants, illustrated a scrupulous concern for the letter of the law in minute matters. Jesus did not condemn this precision in itself—“these you ought to have done”—but criticized the neglect of the moral and relational dimensions of Torah in favor of ritual exactness. The passage remains a key text in discussions of legal interpretation and the relationship between ritual observance and ethical living in Judaism and Christianity.